and change it to any of the options above. Note: Remember that if you do want VGA you will need the VGA BIOS file ('''vga.rom''').

== Payload ==

== Payload ==

Revision as of 08:26, 5 May 2010

The RCA RM4100 was originally designed by Thomson Electronics and was called the IP1000. I was then manufactured by RCA and named the RM4100. It is the Thomson IP1000's little brother. It is a great little set-top-box for coreboot. Maintained by Joseph Smith.

A full boot log of this board running coreboot is available for reference.

VGA vs. Headless

Before building coreboot for the RCA RM4100 there are a few settings to consider. Depending on whether you want VGA support or not, you might have to modify some files.

See VGA support for information on how to add support for the onboard VGA controller.

Payload

Next you will need to prepare a payload. For this tutorial I will use FILO to boot from a hard drive (Fedora Core 7). In the FILO directory run

make

like instructed in the INSTALL directions and then edit the file Config.

Change:

MENULST_FILE = "hda3:/boot/filo/menu.lst"

to (menu.lst is a symlink to grub.conf and FILO does not like that)

MENULST_FILE = "hda1:/grub/grub.conf"

to boot to GRUB on the Compact Flash card or

MENULST_FILE = "hdc1:/grub/grub.conf"

to boot from the harddrive (if you have the HD hack installed).

Change:

#SERIAL_SPEED = 115200

to

SERIAL_SPEED = 115200

to insure we get output to the serial console. That should be it. Now you can run

make

again to build your payload ELF file. Once that finishes copy filo.elf to the /tmp directory, or you can adjust targets/rca/rm4100/Config.lb to point to where filo.elf is.

You can further reduce the size of filo.elf by disabling various unneeded options in FILO's Config file (e.g. support for filesystems you don't use).

Building coreboot

Now we are ready to build coreboot.

See the Build HOWTO for information on how to build coreboot for this board.

See VGA support for information on how to add support for the onboard VGA controller.

Flashing coreboot

At last you're ready to flash bios.bin to your RM4100. If this is the first time, meaning your RM4100 still has the original BIOS, you need to use the method described on the Howto install coreboot & Linux on the RM4100 article to flash, otherwise you can just use flashrom.

I, the copyright holder of this work, hereby release it into the public domain. This applies worldwide.

In case this is not legally possible:I grant anyone the right to use this work for any purpose, without any conditions, unless such conditions are required by law.